Layette set 16 is almost done. I've got one bootie and the blanket to do. I entered the cardigan and hat in the fair. I'll find out later today how they did.

Yesterday I took a little break from layette knitting to work on a tiny doll dress for my Amber. I'll be posting more details later.

The garage is coming along very well this week. They built the upstairs floor, framed the upstairs wall, built the stairs complete with railing,

and installed the windows and man doors. Today they have started putting up the metal siding.

I'm working at the fair today. I'll be helping out with the booth for the North Idaho Secular Society. I'm looking forward to it. I hope it doesn't get too hot or smoky. There are several wild fires over in the Spokane, Washington area and the wind likes to blow the smoke this way. It got pretty thick on Tuesday. It cleared out yesterday because the wind shifted. I hope it stays that way. Mostly, I hope they get the fires out. Nothing scares me like wild fires.

8/18/16

My daughter Ruth went back to college this week, on Monday. I am alone again during the day. I will really miss her. I'm glad we got to do a project together that turned out to be a lot of fun.

Last Saturday morning she surprised me by going out and picking a big bucket of Choke Cherries so we could make jelly.

Choke Cherries grow wild all over our property. There are several bushes growing along our driveway. I've been living here 24 years and every year when the wild Choke Cherries are ripe I say "I should pick some cherries and try making jelly" but I never got around to doing it.

I was so surprised by this 'gift' from Ruth. I had plans for that day, but I totally threw them out the window and we spent the whole day making jelly.

I found a simple recipe on the internet that consisted of the cherries, pectin, sugar, and a lot of elbow grease. I dug around in my cupboards and found 7 jelly jars. I've never made Choke Cherry jelly before and I didn't think we'd get much out of that big bucket because 90% of a Choke Cherry is pit. The rest is sour bitter that is slightly cherry in flavor.

Boy, were we surprised! I had to dig out some old pint jars. We processed a batch, then had to find more jars for a second batch! We got 15 jars of jelly! 7 small jelly jars, and 8 pint jars!

I wish I'd made it years ago. We've been missing out! It's absolutely delicious! I've been eating it on everything.

I'm so glad my daughter and I got to make the jelly together. We had so much fun. I will treasure this memory forever.

8/17/16

It's North Idaho Fair time. Yesterday I hauled mine and Knitwits items to the fairgrounds to be entered in the fair. I only had 18 entries this year, 5 of them mine. That's way down from last year's 47 entries.

One of our members is entering her things under her own name, rather than Knitwits, this year because in past years she's entered half her items through Knitwits, and half under her own name. She usually has lots of items to enter each year, but only half of them are needlecraft items. Anyway, when it comes to paying the prize money for all the ribbons she wins, the fair people always get horribly confused and mess everything up, so we decided to let her do all her entries herself to avoid this. Counting hers, we 'technically' probably have closer to 30 entries for Knitwits, but that's still down. We lost two of our more skilled and prolific members this past year who also used to make lots of entries. I miss both of these ladies very much, for they were awesome people to have in my life. But, unfortunately, human lives are limited.

As I mentioned, I entered 5 items this year. Three are knitted, one beaded, and one counted cross stitch.

The first knit project I managed to finish yesterday morning.

Originally I was going to finish a very complicated beaded necklace, but by Saturday I knew there was no way I was going to accomplish that. There was just too much left to do on it, so I looked at what I had in knitting that could be finished in time. This outfit fit the bill perfectly. I entered it as you see here, on the stand. I even made the jewelry to go with it.

My second knit project I entered as a 4 piece infant set.

That would be the cardigan, hat, and two booties. I didn't enter the blanket.

I don't have a pic of the third knitted entry, which was a 2 piece infant set. It is the striped sweater and hat for Layette set 16.

In beading I entered the recently finished Magnesite bracelet.

Last, but not least, is Snowman Row.

It will be interesting to find out how I do. I'm working at the fair for 3 days this year, starting next Wednesday, in the North Idaho Secular Society booth, so I will know then.

The garage did not get much done on it last week. The walls were supposed to be all framed, the garage doors installed, and the electrical done. But all that got done was a little bit of framing on the front. But it started to look like a garage at last.

The building crew got more serious this week and have showed up every day so far. It looks like this now. All the framing is done on the front

And the sides.

There's just a little bit of framing left to do on the back.

I find the guy reactions to this building project very funny. Yesterday the UPS guy showed up with a delivery. I opened the front door and he was standing in front of it staring with his mouth open. Finally he said "What's going on here?" So I told him. "That is a beautiful building!" he said with as much awe as a person can have. He was very very impressed.

The electrical is scheduled to be installed tomorrow. I don't know if that's going to happen.

8/11/16

Hello! I'm back! We had a lovely camping trip. The weather was great, except one day where it was cloudy and chilly all day, but we didn't mind. We had a camp fire. Other than that, it was perfect. I relaxed and enjoyed myself the whole week.

I know I said I was taking my camera and some of my dolls for photo fun, but I promptly forgot to pack the dolls. I didn't feel like taking pics without them. So that's that. I did take my knitting with me and got a lot done. More on that later, after everything has been washed and blocked. Got lots of baby stuff done.

It's fair time so I've been busy getting some entries put together. I'm going to have 5 items this year, assuming I get the last item done. I've knit a LOT of stuff this past year, mostly for baby layette sets. But I can only enter two of them. They've decreased the number of categories considerably this year. All the work I did to make the categories great has been undone by a new Superintendent of Knitting. We went from 8 pages of categories to 2. For instance, I had sweaters divided up by type: plain knit, solid textured knit (i.e. cables), open textured knit (i.e.lace), colorwork knit. Not anymore. Now it's just Adult sweater. Period. We can only enter 1 item per category.

We also had several categories for afghans, divided by size, small, medium, and large, which has been around forever. Now it's just adult knit afghan and baby knit afghan. Urg. There will be a lot less entries because of this. I'm not happy, but, oh well.

So, I'm entering 2 of my baby sweaters. One with the matching hat and booties as a 3 piece set, and one with just the matching hat as a 2 piece set. That's it for my knitting. I'm also entering my Snowman Row cross stitch, and 2 beaded items. Which brings me to my bracelet, which I finished 2 days ago.

It's made with Magnesite dyed blue. I bought these beads the last time we visited Yellowstone National Park from a rock shop in West Yellowstone, Montana.

The base is right angle weave and I've embellished it with 3mm Swarovski crystals and size 15 seed beads.

I didn't use a pattern for this project because it's fairly simple and just rolling around in my head. I've made it several times before.

I told my daughter now I'll need to buy an outfit to go with it. Yesterday a pretty tank top I ordered weeks ago and forgot about arrived. It goes perfect with this bracelet. My subconscious must have been working without my knowledge.

I used a gold plated toggle clasp I bought from Firemountain Gems. Not pure gold, but it'll do.